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Nice, however, above and beyond my means. The appearance alone looks like big $$$$$$$ . I may have to buy a lotto ticket.

I couldn't use it enough around here to get the money back out of it.

Swag has a nice idea on how to improve a HF bender by adding their wing kit, a 4 ton HF jack and a HF electric pipe threader. The improved HF bender comes out to be less than $400 if I remember correctly.

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The time shark is a great bender but pricey. I have used a JD2 bender for last 16 years. It's a lower cost bender and never had a problem. I have dies from 3/4 - 2 inch in tube and 1 - 1 1/2 square.

I like JD Squared stuff, I have their tube notcher, it's a very well made tool. If I was to by a bender I buy a JD squared like yours.

Here's one I have been playing around with in my head .... It's drawn with MS's Paint Program so It's not so clean and fancy...

The center/body of the die would be made from 1/2" plate (the blue)

The green would be either 3/8 or 1/2" X 2" wide flat stock with a 1/2" milled grove down the center a 1/8" deep to be bent around the dies 1/2" thick body plate (blue)

Mill a V in the top side of the flat stock for holding different sizes of tube, pipe, wire and rod... and mill a few with slots for holding different sizes of sq tube.

I was thinking by the time I milled a 1/2" wide X 1/8 deep grove down the middle of the 2" wide flat stock for going around the dies 1/2" center plate (Blue).... and milled a V for different size tube and slots for square tube the 1/2"X 2" wide flat stock would be easier to bend around the dies 1/2" body plate.

Still playing around with the idea... It seems like dies would be cheap to build, but then again it's only a thought and I'm no engineer.

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Fwiw, I built a vertical jd2 type tube bender for about $500 including a 1.75x180° die set. It works great. I can produce I identical bends fairly quickly with it with ease. It is air over hydraulic and has casters so it is easy to move around the shop. I am very happy with how it turned out. Shoot me a pm if you are interested in some details.

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Hey Elvis I thank you for the link. Seems to be pretty east to build. I never thought about it but bending a lot with one just seems more practical I won't be bending much more moly now that I am in Texas but it would be nice for thick wall mild. Jeeps kept me busy and play money in my pocket. What are you building?

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Fwiw, I built a vertical jd2 type tube bender for about $500 including a 1.75x180° die set. It works great. I can produce I identical bends fairly quickly with it with ease. It is air over hydraulic and has casters so it is easy to move around the shop. I am very happy with how it turned out. Shoot me a pm if you are interested in some details.

I'd be interested in looking at your bender elvis, but I don't have the drive or desire to build one at this time.... I'm going to have my interview with the eye doc to have my cataracts removed in a couple weeks, I'm hoping it doesn't take long for a my eyes to heal so I can weld again and do other things I like to do. I have my name down on a Springfield Armory XD-S, I'm looking forward to shooting it and an AK 47 that I have never fired before. Hopefully my eyes will heal as fast as me changing my mind about the shears.

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Hey Elvis I thank you for the link. Seems to be pretty east to build. I never thought about it but bending a lot with one just seems more practical I won't be bending much more moly now that I am in Texas but it would be nice for thick wall mild. Jeeps kept me busy and play money in my pocket. What are you building?

The last thing I built was a set of rock sliders for XJs. I thinking about getting into cad designed chassis builds this fall. I just do general fab. I have been working on the side for a while and I need to figure out a few details so that I can devote more time to offroad stuff. First need to cage my cherokee and then I want to build up a ultra4 spec'd chassis to build a comp buggy. Dreams...

I'd be interested in looking at your bender elvis, but I don't have the drive or desire to build one at this time.... I'm going to have my interview with the eye doc to have my cataracts removed in a couple weeks, I'm hoping it doesn't take long for a my eyes to heal so I can weld again and do other things I like to do. I have my name down on a Springfield Armory XD-S, I'm looking forward to shooting it and an AK 47 that I have never fired before. Hopefully my eyes will heal as fast as me changing my mind about the shears.

What I have is similar. Mine uses model 3 dies, but with a little modification it could use the 32 dies. I just used a cheapo harbor freight air/hydro 8-ton jack for the bending force. Down the road I want to convert it to electric over hydraulic. I learned a few things building this one and I have some things I plan to improve for the next build. I would build it out of thicker material: I used stacked, or laminated, 1/4" that is welded together. It is nice and stout but I would use two layers of .375" next time.

What I have works great and it was a helluva lot cheaper than buying something commercially.